The two Onix faced each other across the battered field. Drake's Onix had stopped being aggressive. The Ice Beam that had tagged its tail during Dig, the Iron Tail that had found it through solid rock, both had taught it caution. This crystal-bodied relative had abilities it didn't understand and couldn't predict.
Drake's mind was already recalculating. "Mid Level boosted to near-Elite. One tier below my Onix. Whatever method Ash used to bridge that gap, a direct confrontation still favours me. Ground tactics failed. Time to meet it head-on."
"Onix, Rock Slide!"
Rock-type moves were super effective against Ice. Drake was playing the matchup he could see. What he didn't know was that the Crystal Onix carried Steel typing alongside the Ice. Steel resisted Rock. The four-times advantage he was expecting was just neutral damage.
Massive stones materialised in the air around Drake's Onix and rained down on the Crystal Onix like a landslide. The ground trembled under the barrage.
Drake allowed himself a confident smile. Volume and type advantage. Even a special Onix couldn't ignore that.
"Crystal Onix, Iron Tail!"
The Crystal Onix's tail flashed silver. It didn't dodge. It planted itself and swung.
The first rock shattered on contact. Then the second. Then the third, fourth, fifth. Iron Tail swept through the falling Rock Slide like a blade through pottery, each stone exploding into fragments the instant the metallic tail connected. The rhythm was relentless: swing, crack, swing, crack, swing, crack. Dust and stone chips filled the air.
Drake's smile died. Every rock, destroyed. The entire Rock Slide, dismantled in seconds.
Steel-type. The realisation hit him. The Crystal Onix wasn't just Ice. The power and speed behind that Iron Tail, the ease with which it had demolished Rock Slide, only made sense with STAB. Ice and Steel. Rock-type moves weren't super effective at all. They were neutral.
He'd been fighting with wrong information since the match began.
Before the dust could settle, the Crystal Onix charged through its own smoke screen. Its crystal body caught what little light filtered through the debris cloud and scattered it like a prism. It closed the gap to Drake's Onix in a heartbeat.
"Take Down, now!" Drake's command was urgent. At this range, Onix's best option was to use its body as a weapon. Drake's Onix had Rock Head, which negated Take Down's recoil. A full-body collision at point-blank range was the safest counter available.
Onix tensed, white energy wrapping its frame, and threw itself forward.
"Dodge."
The Crystal Onix twisted. Its serpentine body bent at an angle that shouldn't have been possible for something made of rigid crystal segments, sliding past the charging Onix by centimetres. Take Down hit nothing. Onix's momentum carried it forward, overshooting, its back exposed and unguarded.
"Iron Tail."
The Crystal Onix pivoted. Steel energy gathered on its tail, brighter and denser than before. The swing caught Onix across the back with the full force of a STAB super-effective hit.
The impact sounded like a hammer striking an anvil. Onix's stone body lurched forward and hit the ground face-first. Visible cracks split the rocky surface of its back. A roar of pain echoed across the stadium.
Drake's fists clenched. The frustration was specific and maddening. His Onix was the higher level. It should have been faster. It should have landed Take Down at that range. Any Onix should have been too rigid to dodge at point-blank distance. But the Crystal Onix had done it, flowing around the attack like water around a stone.
They were the same species. His was stronger on paper. And it was losing.
"Finish it. Ice Fang!"
Cold rolled off the Crystal Onix like a living thing. Its transparent fangs sheathed themselves in dense ice crystals, frost bleeding from the edges and freezing the air into visible mist. The ground beneath it crackled with a thin layer of ice.
Drake's Onix was still down, struggling to lift its head from the Iron Tail blow. It hadn't gathered the strength to stand, let alone guard.
The Crystal Onix leaned down and bit.
The sound was sharp. A clean, crystalline crack as ice-coated fangs sank into the fractured stone of Onix's body. Cold surged through the bite, flooding Onix's interior, draining the last reserves of strength it had.
Onix collapsed. The fall shook the field one final time.
"Onix is unable to battle. Crystal Onix wins!"
Three of Drake's Pokémon were down. Ash's three, Lapras, Snorlax, and Crystal Onix, were still in peak condition. None had taken meaningful damage. Each had defeated its opponent with a comfortable margin.
If any of the three fights had been close, it was the first: Lapras against Drake's Ditto. A Ditto that could copy any Pokémon it saw was a nightmare matchup if you let it settle. Ash had won by forcing Ditto to attempt a move Lapras's body wasn't built to execute, exploiting the gap between copied form and copied capability. Clever rather than powerful.
But Lapras had still been the one standing at the end.
"With three of Chief Drake's Pokémon unable to battle, we'll enter halftime. The field will be swapped. Please stand by!"
The arena floor descended and a new surface rose to replace it: sand. Soft, loose, deep sand that would slow heavy Pokémon and reward agility. A different game from the rocky terrain of the first half.
Ash returned to his player area. Misty and Serena were waiting.
"That was incredible, Ash!" Serena's eyes were bright. "Three wins without losing a single Pokémon against the Head Trainer of the Orange Islands!"
She'd watched Ash battle Legendary Pokémon before, but those clashes existed on a scale so far beyond normal combat that they felt abstract. Incomprehensible. Like watching natural disasters with personalities. This was different. This was a trainer battle she could follow, could learn from, could measure herself against.
"I appreciate that, but Drake wasn't going all out." Ash wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "He's the Supreme Trainer of the Orange Islands. There's no way his entire roster is Elite Level and below. Two of those Pokémon were Elite Peak. One was Initial Elite. For someone in his position, that's warm-up material."
"Those weren't his real Pokémon?" Serena tilted her head.
"Probably not. Even Misty had Elite-level Pokémon when she started as Gym Leader. Someone at Drake's level should be operating well above that."
Misty's eye twitched. "Even Misty"? What am I, a baseline? But she held her tongue. Ash wasn't being dismissive. The point was valid. If Kanto's Elite Four fielded only Gym Leader Level mains, something would be wrong. The same logic applied to the head of an entire island league.
Drake's real team was still in its Poké Balls.
"So powerful..." Serena murmured, half to herself. "I wonder when I'll reach that level."
"You'll get there." Ash ruffled her hair. "You're practically half my student at this point."
He took the water Misty offered and drained it in one go.
"Thanks. Time to head back out."
"Good luck." Misty smiled.
"Good luck, Ash!" Serena touched the spot where his hand had been, then caught herself and added her voice to Misty's.
"Welcome back, everyone! The halftime break is over, and the second half officially begins! After some rest and adjustment, will Chief Drake mount a comeback, or will Ash complete the sweep?"
Both trainers stood on their platforms. Ash carried the same easy energy he'd had since the match started. Drake had changed. The impulsive reactions from the first half were gone. His posture was settled. His eyes were calm. Whatever adjustment he'd needed, he'd found it.
"Ash." Drake's voice carried across the sand field. "This might sound arrogant, but if you send out Pokémon at the same level as the first half, a single one of mine will sweep them."
"So you're bringing the real team out, Drake?"
Drake paused. The boy had known. From the start, Ash had recognised that the first three Pokémon were probes, not pillars. Which meant Ash's own first three might have been the same thing.
Scouts sent to map the battlefield before the main force deployed.
Interesting.
"My fourth Pokémon." Drake palmed a Poké Ball. "Electivire!"
The ball cracked open and a black-and-yellow powerhouse materialised on the sand. Electivire, the recently discovered evolution of Electabuzz, native to the Sinnoh region. The Electirizer required for evolution had been available for about two months. Anyone with the resources and an Electabuzz would have made the upgrade. For Electabuzz, evolution was improvement across the board.
Ash studied the Electivire. Then he made his choice.
"Infernape, I choose you!"
Fire blazed on the sand field. The monkey Pokémon landed in a fighting stance, the flame crown on its head flaring with the heat of competition. Its eyes found Electivire across the arena and locked on.